Lord Mayhem

Do you enjoy standing around doing nothing but waiting for health/end bars to recover if Rest is down? If so then you'd have loved EverQuest back in 1999-2003 when I played - one of my characters took 20+ mins to recover a full mana bar from empty without external buffs and it's not like there were any consumables you could chug or powers/skills you could use to top up - so it was basically a 5min fight then 20mins downtime - I got a lot of novel reading done in those days.

EQ taught me that time spent waiting for a bar to refill was basically just wasted time - and in a game that I pay for I don't appreciate having my time wasted unless it is adding to atmosphere or I am given something else to occupy myself while waiting. The wasted time these days is much less, but it's still unnecessary when it occurs.

Rest has enough penalties when you use it that I don't see why it needs more than 10secs recharge time - it's not like you're ever going to use it in combat. I don't see how Rest coming up faster is even comparable to wanting a "level to 20" button - this isn't about levelling faster, it's about spending time enjoying your gameplay rather than wasting time - I don't want to level faster - I just want boring or frustrating moments removed.

Have you thought about getting the Day Job badges for hospitals and the university? Getting both gives you the Physician Accolade and then logging out in hospitals or universities will build up charges of an ally resurrection power (15 charges maximum I think, but that should be plenty unless the defender is dying a lot). I've found it rather handy, and it would save you 3 power picks assuming you didn't need Aid Self anyway.

Ditto - I stopped playing my Corruptor and Blaster on raids as I hated the amount of mez flying around. Now I only take my Scrappers/Brutes/Stalkers/VEATs to mothership raids (usually a VEAT tbh).

I oppose it for a different reason - on my latest duo my friend and I did The Radio starting just after we dinged L10 with the intent of doing that and then 3 newsies and a mayhem (for the Zero-G Pack) to get to L15 - we actually had to turn off xp on the second newsie (at L14.9) to avoid outlevelling the chance to pick up that mayhem. I can't imagine how bad it would be if we could actually bear to do the longer (and duller) lowbie arcs on blueside at that level - must be so easy to outlevel every single contact at that level range, especially if you're teaming.

Levelling seems fast enough. What the game really needs is fresh newbie content (hopefully Going Rogue will fix this), the endurance issues at L1-20 tackled (i.e. an increase in base recovery rates and reducing recharge time on Rest power) and a way to give us more powers at lower levels. For the latter I'd suggest one of two things:

1) let anyone skip to L5 or L10 with new characters (perhaps as a function of the 3 or 6 month veteran reward badge) using a /level command, or

2) let us pick 2-3 primary and 2 secondary powers at character creation so the early game isn't so dull due to lack of powers, and then either change some later levels in the game to give us extra slots instead of extra power picks, or just leave things as they are (so you'd have 2-3 additional powers by the end of the game - actually that would be good compensation for having to take 3 Fitness pool powers on most characters).

Some of them have such bad spelling and sentence construction that they may have been written by someone who doesn't natively speak English.

Though I did read a bio once that was actually well written and very interesting but had a glaring typo, so while complimenting the player for their imaginative ideas I tagged on the end "oh and you may want to correct..." and mentioned the typo. Woah boy, you wouldn't believe the stream of vehemence I got back - was hard to believe the person who wrote the bio was the same person raging at me. Some people just really hate being corrected I guess.

Yeah that's definitely where we differ then. Personally I look at quests as a way to find out more about the world, because I love learning the lore but I don't roleplay - I think that stems from the fact that in my pen & paper RPG days I was always the GM/DM (and preferred that role) but hardly ever a player. So I like writing character bios (for fun, and for others to read as I like reading bios), but after that I'm not too fussed whether the missions suit my character or fit their motivations - I just want to enjoy the basic gameplay and learn more about the game/lore.

I adore the VEATs - I wouldn't have spent 5+ billion inf and counting (i.e. another 2+ billion inf saved to purple up my Fort) on both of mine so far if I didn't enjoy playing them. There's only two things I dislike about VEATs really - the "thin" storyline lore-wise (personally I would have liked starting out as a loyal Arachnos grunt) and the fact that despite a big inf spend I still can't end-balance my Widow (though her end issues are only noticeable when trying to solo pylons and certain AVs).

This is probably where we differ then - I love intrigue, strife and scheming.

I like the Council (and Arachnos for that matter) because factions with internal dissent between different Archvillains with their own agendas are a lot more interesting to me than "mysterious" yet united factions we know a lot less about (like Malta/KoA, Sky Raiders, Tsoo, and all other bland factions with very few AVs and not much lore history surrounding them).

The gameplay of the Kheldian arcs wasn't the most interesting/memorable in the world (but then it was written pre-CoV, before the devs really started to produce quality mission storylines with charismatic contact dialogue), but what made them interesting for me was the drip-fed information we learnt while running the interlinked storylines surrounding Lillian Issan, which gradually built up a picture of the Council and how their arch-villains interact with each other (especially Requiem, Arakhn and The Center) and with the Nictus.

I just adore those clues you get on the Kheldian arcs (and also on some Striga arcs and the Mutation origin arc "A Path into Darkness") which are basically email/letter communications between Council leaders or diary entries. They give you a much more personal insight into that faction, which you just don't get from mission briefings or from reading the lore pages on the official website.

Of course if you prefer storylines and factions that leave a lot of gaps and don't tell you much about anything so you can insert your own interpretations/motivations then of course you're going to dislike the Kheldian missions and most of Grandville, for the same reason I dislike the thin/bland stories attached to newspaper missions. Where you see a linear storyline I see a chance to learn more about the world.

Oh btw if you hate The Council you better avoid MA arcID 220049 - it's wholly inspired by those email/letter clues in the Dev-made content between Requiem, Arakhn and The Center.

That's not clear to me at all. Alan Desslock seems to be telling you what to think from the start:

"So you're decided you're tired of all these 'Destined Ones', eh? Well, maybe we can work together and do something about it."

But then on the opening mission he says:

"So, you come to me because you want to pretend you are a Destined One, eh? Want all the perks that go with being one of the few, the proud, the Tools of Lord Recluse?!
(Source)

So yeah, not a great opening - we're so tired of Destined Ones that we decide to pretend we're one of them. Great plan! Thanks Alan! Then we spend most of the next 45 levels fretting and vacillating between "am I, or aren't I a Destined One?" before finding out our persistence supposedly made us one. Well that's really going to help the fact we're tired of all those potential Destined Ones - we just supplanted them!

Then, for a finale, we go beat up Statesman for kicks, because hey, we're the Destined One and... errrr... I guess that's what we're supposed to do.

Truly epic...

I love using TP too, but I just found that without heavy slotting like my MM has it just chews through my end on the longer trips across zones.

Admittedly I tend to click for my next TP hop as soon as I appear - I get latency a lot (can't be helped where I live) so if I don't click as soon as I appear I tend to fall from the sky while aiming to make my next click.

Honestly though I just think the two main reasons TP is not such a popular power - and the reason I so rarely take it - is down to the pre-reqs and the (perceived) necessity to slot it. I usually can't spare slots on 95% of my builds and very rarely do I consider Recall Friend or TP Foe as a required power, ergo I hardly ever take TP.

I do think the Vet bonus for 60 months will help - being able to take TP without a pre-req - but sadly due to my hiatus away from the game and not starting to play CoH until a little after EU release I'm still two years away from that.

Sometimes I just wish we could pick a travel power at certain level, regardless of our normal power picks, and have it just work at peak efficiency from the start, as I believe is done in Champions Online (not many things from that game I'd want to see here, but that's one). Until then I'm likely to continue taking Super Speed or Super Jump as travel power on 95% of my characters simply because I usually want their pre-reqs and they're at maximum speed without extra slots.

Yeah sorry about that - came here by link from my subscriber list and it jumped to Dispari's post as last unread.

I didn't realise TP was faster unslotted - never felt it to me, but then I do get a lot of latency. Admittedly I had to keep stopping to recoup end, even with 1 endrdx in base slot both on my mastermind (before he slotted up TP) and on my stalker (who went with it single-slotted for most of his life befroe I respecced him), so I'm not convinced on that score. Maybe toggles were to blame, but any travel power that makes you turn off toggles to become useable isn't going to be popular with me. I need to be able to cross Nerva without stopping halfway to Rest.

Teleport is pretty great indoors for Granite tankers/brutes

My EM/EA stalker used to make pretty good use of it too - he had Hover and would teleport around in combat - it was a concept thing that fell by the wayside when I started min-maxing heavily though and also realised I just couldn't enjoy playing a melee character without CJ+Hurdle (and using autofollow to stick with targets) - but TP+Hover still worked fairly well... I guess.

Ok lets compromise. What if Teleport with a single slot, with a range/end set IO in it, never ran out your endurance (with no toggles on but also no stamina, as a base) but also was the same speed as Super Speed when crossing a zone, allowing for zero latency and a player with good reaction-time for clicking to the next TP hop? Then Super Speed still has clear advantages when both powers have no extra slots (SS is better indoors, gives stealth, usually requires less clicking/key-inputs while moving, faster if terrain is flat or you get bad latency or your reaction times aren't so good), but Teleport still has the potential to be fastest travel power by adding extra slots if you can spare them (something SS & SJ can't do, as they hit the cap with base slot), plus has the vertical component that SS lacks for those zones that can be a pain to cross with SS (like GV and TV).

TP would also still have the drawback of needing to take a pre-requisite (Recall Friend or TP Foe) that is often less desirable to most players than Air Superiority/Hover, CJ or Hasten.

It makes forming TFs/SFs that much easier and faster - that fact alone makes me happy.

It's a real hassle sometimes to have to keep people waiting while you try to recruit enough mentors for a couple of the lowbies who want to do a TF, just because there aren't enough of you at a common level to be able to team comfortably. If you don't see the awesomeness of that then you probably don't do TFs/SFs very often, and likely never lead them.

I don't care if SSK impedes or helps the powerlevellers - they can play however they want to. If they get bored of the game too quickly then they can go find something else to play - I won't be giving their whining any credence. If they level up too quickly and fail to gain an adequate understanding of gameplay/tactics so that they are unable to play well in teams - and then if they are also unwilling to compromise/improve their flawed gameplay after receiving friendly advice, simply because they're L50 and think they know everything - then I reserve the right to treat them in the same way I do the moronically stupid and the aggressively rude - with contempt and a strong desire to avoid them in future.

Yeah but that's the thing, some MMOs (and other media) can make high fantasy seem mundane just by throwing too much of it at you relentlessly. I prefer having some "mundane" elements so that, when juxtaposed with the high fantasy, it hikes up the dramatic impact that the latter has. You can have a bunch of dragons or giant robots fighting in a field, but it doesn't really connect with me how epic they are until you have normal buildings getting knocked down, people running between their giant legs, or cars getting thrown around - things that can fix the fantasy in my mind as having even the most miniscule chance of being real.

And you can overdose on the epic. EverQuest is a good example of that for me. When I started playing back in 1999 you'd hear about dragon raids and they sounded so cool, but you never saw dragons out in the world so there was a mystique about them. Eventually you'd go on a raid and the dragon would just wow you completely - it was so much bigger than anything you normally fought and you just didn't see anything like that often. A couple of expansions down the road and we were killing dragons every night of the week as trash mobs and most zones had a dragon in them - they became commonplace. EverQuest managed to make dragons seem mundane to me because they overused them.

For me it's all about juxtaposition between the fantastic and the mundane that makes fantasy/sci-fi so compelling.

Now if everyone in an MMO had world-shattering galaxy-conquering characters then it gets kinda dull. Heck, it's already a massive cliché how many player-characters I see ingame with bios about how powerful and terrible they are, how they destroyed this world or ruled that dimension, and then you see them getting pounded into the dirt by a spawn of Hellions. It would almost be comical if it wasn't so pathetic.

That's why, generally, I like to ground my characters in the canon - so I don't end up looking ridiculous.

But maybe I'm just as bad sometimes - I do have one character from another dimension - he was even responsible for the destruction of hundreds of planets - but he doesn't have godlike power himself - he was a barbaric Galactic Emperor who made the dubious decision to attack Rikti Earth. After they wiped out his invasion force and then his empire the Rikti humbled him, chained him like an animal, and then eventually released him onto Primal Earth both for their own amusement and to distract the Freedom Phalanx.

That's the closest I get to a world-shattering character, but he doesn't have god-level power so it works for me. Ok I have one character who is the avatar of a minor volcano god, but he'd struggle to do more than trigger a few previously dormant volcanoes (which is what got him locked up in the Zig in the first place).

To my mind MMOs can't really support characters of godlike power levels (especially ones from outside the canon), because it clashes with in-game canon too much. I'm fine with those restrictions channelling my creativity because they also provide inspiration and common ground with others.

Sure there is. Fly makes it easier to chat while travelling or just afk-travel across a zone, Super Jump is the most fun to use (imho) and Super Speed is the most useful travel power indoors (acts like stealth and easier to speed around when there's a low ceiling). Plus Teleport still doesn't work so well when you have lots of latency, so that's a drawback.

^This. If Teleport could be faster than the other travel powers with just a single Range SO/IO in it and able to be continually used without running you out of End in that situation, then I would choose it a lot more often. As it is I only have Teleport on my mastermind now, because that was the only build with so many spare slots that I could justify throwing 4 slots into teleport so that I could cap it for range and endrdx (which makes it about twice as fast as Super Speed running the 3miles end-to-end in Nerva).

I would also like to see Fly get a boost in speed so that slotting a single Fly speed SO/IO and having Swift was enough to hit the flight speed cap - just like Super Speed and Super Jump can reach their caps with just the base slot and Swift/Hurdle.

One man's "tedious exposition" is another man's "wellspring of lore".

This was how I felt too - the HEAT arcs feel like arcs, while the VEAT missions have about as much dramatic impact and lore as a newspaper/police-band mission. Like you I just didn't find the VEAT arcs satisfying in any way. The Devs had told us repeatedly that epic archetypes were about how epic their story was, not about being epic in gameplay, then they deliver us VEATs with almost no story at all. As much as I love the VEATs in gameplay terms, I still felt cheated.

Ditto, but the fact is I find the different VEATs and Warshades excel at different things - for AV-level single targets my Widow is likely to be fastest (best dps), though occasionally my Bane is (best burst, better end-efficiency, smash not lethal, -res debuffs) - but against a full regular 8-man hazard spawn the Widow is slow chewing through minions/lieuts compared to the Bane (Venom Grenade + Crowd Control crits), who is slower than his Crab build - but they're all easily beaten by the Warshade who can take down a full spawn faster than anything I have except possibly my Archery/En blaster (who only beats the Warshade for burst area damage thanks to RoA, but loses out on survivability and on area dps on longer fights such as against +4s).

Honestly if I had to pick one of the EAT archetypes/branches to do all content with it would be the Bane, just because they're great at pretty much everything, on top of being the best for burst damage on a single target. Sure, the Widow can out-dps them over time and the Warshade and Crab have better area damage, and the Fort has better ranged damage and control, but my Bane really can do it all to a very impressive degree.

I have to agree with Geko to some extent, but I do see your perspective too Bill. The SO game is gone for me, but maybe not for everyone. I haven't slotted an SO into any of my characters since I12 (and I was on hiatus from the game between I9 and I12) - but I can appreciate there are still players who aren't interested in IOs beyond just frankenslotting (indeed, frankenslotting is all I tend to do until the later levels). But I don't think you can look at archetypes in isolation from inventions anymore - some archetypes just gain more from IOs than others and to a lot of players that is now part of the built-in potential of the AT. It certainly is to me.

Take Widows and Banes for example - there's still this perception that Banes are much weaker, especially in survivability - and on SOs yeah that's probably true, because Widows can certainly get much higher defence than Banes without using set bonuses. Add inventions and the gap narrows so much.

Admittedly I've spent 1.5bill inf on my Bane (and about the same on his Crab build) and now his performance is very close to that of my Widow on whom I've spent around 2.5bill inf (and I'm about to spend the same on her Fort build, but I'm waiting til post-I16 to bid) - so the Bane gained more from IOs than the Widow even though she spent more inf - he cured his main weakness (survivability) while to some extent she still suffers from hers (endurance inefficiency).

My Warshade only has one purple set atm and is still mostly frankenslotted with cheap IOs, and yet he can still mow down non-AV spawns faster than any of my VEATs. I will probably purple him fully eventually, but I don't think he'll gain as much as the VEATs did from IOs. Sure, I could try to softcap his def (he has around 20% def atm), but he already has perma-eclipse so it won't add much survivability except to avoid a few more mezzes - and more recharge won't help much either, except perhaps to get another pet out.

Imho VEATs just gain more from IOs than HEATs, and because some VEAT branches can solo AVs so handily it just overshadows what HEATs can do - or at least what Warshades can do, which is taking out whole spawns very quickly (faster than VEATs). Oddly enough you don't see Crabs being derided as rubbish because they can't solo AVs like a Widow/Bane/Fort can, and in my experience a Warshade played well can outdo a Crab at their own game (area damage and pet damage).

And sadly that brings me to why I haven't played a Peacebringer yet - because whether it's on SOs or IOs, with merely a couple of hundred million inf spent or over a billion inf spent, I just don't see how a Peacebringer could excel at anything compared to any of the other EATs. I will play one eventually just for the sake of completism, but I think PBs need an overhaul to give them something they can be best at (and tanking would be my suggestion - I'd give their dwarf form a nice big taunt/debuff aura, with warshade dwarfs receiving a much smaller damage aura with less taunt - I'd also give both of them a small amount of passive mez protection in human form).

I'm almost the exact opposite. I prefer all of the regular non-EAT content redside to most of blueside. Striga, Croatoa and Faultline are okay, but pre-I2 contacts/missions can be very dull I find - and yet they should feel fresher to me considering I've mostly played on redside. That's mainly because the writing on the contacts is so much better redside because they can actually tie the mission writing to the contact, rather than most normal contacts blueside who are offering missions/arcs that 4-5 other contacts also offer.

Plus the creators of the CoV mission gameplay had the advantage of being able to learn from CoH's mistakes and make better use of their codebase because they had developed it further and were more experienced in its application. The mission writing on all 20 contacts in Grandville in particular is better than anything blueside at any level, imho, (and sadly better than most new missions we've had since I12 too) and even looking at lower level I can say that nothing on blueside ever engaged me emotionally like the Seer Marino arc does on redside.

So I'm not biased when I say that when it comes to the VEAT arcs they just seemed like a bunch of stuff that happened, rather than a gradually building epic storyline. While the HEATs investigate their arch-nemeses in the world (the Nictus) and eventually foil a plot that threatens the whole planet (what can be more epic than that? Well, except saving the universe ), the VEATs are getting mucked around by idiots like Brick Johnson, either doing pointless petty jobs or yo-yo-ing between "am I, or aren't I?" in the rather tired Destined One storyline. For a finale the HEATs get to take down the two architects of the global plot, the Nictus leaders, while the VEATs get a single mission thrown at them to go beat-up Statesman... just for the kudos... with absolutely nothing leading up to it plot-wise.

As far as gameplay goes I don't find VEATs or Warshades more epic than each other (I can't comment for Peacebringers), though Warshades are certainly more flashy with their powers and the shapeshifting seems rather epic to me, compared to using attacks that we've seen in regular powersets for years (Crabs exempted, of course, which is why they were the first VEAT branch I played to L50). Sure, I generally prefer playing my VEATs over my Warshade, but that's subjective and probably biased both by my preference for redside content/zones and the fact I've poured a lot more inf into my VEATs.

In duos I found the VEATs much slower to develop - my Warshade had most of his playstyle and core powers nailed down by L22, with just pets and eclipse to come later (at L32 and L38 respectively), and felt fairly powerful from L6 onwards - and that was pre-Inventions and pre- the scaling +ToHit for low levels too. Though in that respect I guess the VEATs were more fun in the later levels because there were still powers I felt I desperately needed (or just really wanted) all the way to L50. By comparison 9 of my Warshade's final 11 powers (after L22) were utility/QoL powers or just things that might be fun in rare situations, but stuff that was not required in my core gameplay and that I could easily live without (tbh I wish I could have traded some of those power picks for more slots). As an upshot, when it comes to exemping the Warshade loses far less of his ability than the VEATs do (not that I exemp much).

I guess it comes down to whether you feel it's more epic saving the world or serving your own vanity - and whether you feel it's more epic being part alien and linked into an intergalactic war, or a supervillain's minion who got fed up taking orders - or just the simple question of whether you want to be a good guy or a bad guy.

Shhh... you're ruining my chances of getting Fly's speed buffed

That's a fantastic idea - I could get behind that.

Then they just need to change the PB/WS inherent to buff the team (within a certain radius) as well as the Kheldian and we're good to go.

They're faster than that - the same as normal Fly iirc (but use less end) - but of course base flight speed is pretty slow at low level which doesn't help. What does help is the GvE jump-pack - boosts you to the flight speed cap for 30seconds, which is good enough for crossing most of the zones that aren't Nerva.

Yeah Stalker builds can be very tight at low level, but I find them no worse than doms or VEATs by higher levels. I got my Elec/Nin to 50 last week and all I had skipped was Charged Brawl (took Air Superiority instead) and Smoke Flash, plus I only took Mu Bolts and Ball Lightning from patrons, then CJ/SJ and the 3 Fitness powers (Hurdle+CJ by 14, Stamina by 20, SJ at 30 - took one of the def shields in the 20s as they do so little except eat endurance pre-stamina and pre-SOs).

I used to collect gun temps on my Bot/Dark MM, but on most of my characters I use temps whenever it feels appropriate - except for the pets - I tend to just keep saving those for when I really need them and that time rarely comes.

I think Rodion is referring to Positron's super-sidekicking post, specifically the following paragraph:

There were lots of VEATs around when I levelled my Spider, just after they were first introduced, but by the time I played a widow I think most players had gone back to blueside - redside on Union isn't that busy at the best of times. Admittedly I prefer to duo and mostly levelled my Spider with my friend's Widow, and he leveled his Spider with my Widow - never had any survivability issues at all, but VEATs just felt underpowered damage-wise at low level compared to brutes/blasters etc (plus I got very bored of the gun attacks on my spider), whereas my Warshade was doing great damage from L6+ and from L12+ I was seeking out big spawns in hazard zones and levelling so fast, but admittedly wasn't as survivable.

Yeah that's what I figured - I was planning to go bi-form human/dwarf anyway (maybe just use nova for very low level then respec it out) as I couldn't see many advantages to PB's nova when compared to its human form attacks/shields. Whereas on my WS I could eventually self-cap resists at 85% and almost reach the damage and ToHit caps on my own, on an almost permanent basis, and in nova form too (even tanked Rom once in nova).

I guess PBs are better for soloing regular missions - at least until I16 when a WS will be able to get big spawns when solo. Otherwise I just don't really see a niche for the PB at all. Sure, PB used to arguably be better tanks for a team than WS in dwarf because they could spam their PBAE more often to hold aggro, but with the WS change to dwarf mire that's no longer true - plus WS dwarf tanks can hit higher resist numbers at high level thanks to Eclipse (only takes 5 targets to cap human/nova form resists on my WS, and it's almost capped with 4, and takes even less targets to cap dwarf resists) and be far more survivable than a PB while doing better damage too.